I think you’ll be satisfied with the results

It’s done Gnomeaggedon, and I think you’ll be satisfied with the results.

If you aren’t into streams of achievement screenshots, then you may not want to read any further.

If my post from yesterday about Achievement Envy rang some uncomfortable bells, likewise this isn’t the post for you.

If however you want to live vicariously through my many minor triumphs, then read on.

It all started on Thursday, yes some of my playtime envy has been sated, I have had some bonus time online.

Hitting the Basin

1st order of the night was to catch me some fish down in Sholazar basin, somewhere that I hadn’t even flown over as yet. Now I’m not sure about you, but when I am in the air these days, I find it hard to fly into an unexplored zone and just do my business… I need to take a quick look around.

I did me some looking, and with Sholazar basic explored, that capped off Northrend. Outland yesterday, Northrend today. I has been a busy Gnome…

… and I appreciate getting the recognition I deserve, nay demand, from them Dwarves.

What was I doing in Sholazar again?

Oh yeah, fishing… not too much fishing, but just enough fishing…

Enough for what you ask?

To prove my worth as a Master Fisherman and show I had the skills to pay the bills… Maybe Marcia will look at me in a different way from now on… or at least let me look at her in a different way ;-)

While trotting through Ironforge, I, for maybe the 1,000th time, passed by this beggar. I see them a lot in real life, though rarely of the veteran variety. I find it so sad that the veterans get forgotten after the wars are raged, they are left standing by the side of the road, hoping that someone will at least stop by and reminisce about the good ol’ days, when Dwarves were Dwarves and Orcs were KoS.

This Summer Scorchling reminded me painfully that I want one (curse you Prelimar for reminding me).

I especially want one if they go on these rants periodically. I would love it if a semi-afk party member came back to Ragnaros sitting amongst the party… hell, it would be fun mid battle!

Mind you he does go on a bit… nearly as much as a Gnome we all know.

LFG /fail

There are a couple of things I want Blizzard to fix as a high priority. Not because they are earth shattering, rather the opposite… how hard can they be, and why the hell don’t they work already?

So you are giving us a Midsummer event that requires us to get a group and go and kill a boss in an instance.

This would require a group, therefore we will all turn to Blizzard’s trusted LOOKING FOR GROUP tool… wont we?

Ohh, what do you know… the F’N! instance isn’t listed (I have placed the F’N in this post, because there was lots of F’n swearing going on in chat by me about the F’n LFG instance that didn’t list the F’n instance required to get a group for the F’n Midsummer quest that F’n Blizzard wants us all to have F’n fun while completing. Mr. Z! pointed out I could just use /general or /trade when in a zone… I did that, time and again… Hopefully all my mates had their profanity filters on so they could appreciate the ends I was prepared to go to to circumvent the filter to express my F’n frustration.)

Soup Kitchen

So while traveling the Outland, spamming /general and /trade looking for a group that would hand over something more than F’n Cloaks of the Cheap Arsed Vendor, I did my Outland cooking daily…

Two recipes required to finish off the Outland Gourmet achievement

…Make that one more…

Heroic Friday

While we were futzing around trying to decide what we were doing on Friday night, my mate’s guild (most of them are in the same guild) asked if they wanted to come along. They had 8 spots for Heroic Naxx, 1/2 the instance was already down, but since there were 8 of us, and 8 spare spots, it made sense to up things a notch.

For one thing, I managed to pick up some more Emblems of Valor, while they are still worth something and pick up an achievement to boot.

Then it was off to Spider Wing… you know, the one we have been struggling for weeks trying to complete the Arachnophobia achievement. Funnily enough, the same discussion was had about whether we should try to combine a couple of achievements in one run, but the end result was just work on one.

So now I have a matching set, Normal Arachnophobia and Heroic Arachnophobia… kinda sounds like my phobia is getting worse, doesn’t it…

We called it at KT because it was getting late for some folk… and when it’s a 25 person raid, chances are there are more that have to go than in a 10 man raid.

But not before we took down Sapp, and more importantly I got a ride on a Spectral Tiger.

Funny thing is, after the run, my Mate’s guild asked my mates to ask me if I would join the guild…

Why is that funny?

Well you see the guild was formed after splitting from my current guild (or one of it’s many incarnations), in part because of the previous Guild Leader (who has since left the guild and the server). So I know (and are known) by many of the folks in my mate’s guild, yet I am playing with many of their original guild mates.

I like the folk in my current guild, and as much as I like the folks in my Mate’s guild, I figure there is no good reason to move over. They know me. I’m on their DKP list…. I figure I will join them when I can, and when I can’t I will be hanging with my guild.

This is what Ahune disappointment looks like

My mates generously took me to Slave Pens (OK I begged and begged, it was pathetic), both Heroic (for those with the key) and non-Heroic (for their un-keyed alts). I lost count of how many times we did it… but later I realized I had a bag full of trash cloaks and needless to say, no fiery pets.

Still I had to find some fun in there somehow. Apart from running off when no one was looking and pulling more mobs back (most of which would be dead before my return mind you), I was also really enjoying the catapult rides.

Find an incoming Ice spike, and ride it. It wasn’t like I was slacking off, I was still popping instants, but I was just trying to make it a tab more fun…

I nicked on last night (Tuesday night Oz time) as my wife was going out and suggested I play… one more try at the pet maybe…

Server shutdown in 3 minutes…

I don’t think so!

Saturday Session

I wanted some Mammoth to feed my Achievement needs, just a couple you understand…

After the 1st couple of FFBs I though, why not speed up the process…

Before I knew it the Borean Tundra was littered with Mammoth corpses (both in size and biologically), and I was having fun… mmm I need some Rhinos too… ;-)

Get me for Free!

I had a quick look at my blog stats at one point, and noticed something a bit… well, strange…

A new GoogledGnome maybe? Armaggedons coming free download

Not one hit… but two hits!

Sounds like a great idea… I mean if I can save on travel time by having you guys download me somewhere else, then I am up for it.

And done

So I only need one more recipe….

Make that no more recipes…

I am a GourmetGnome! (Taste best with chilli)

On a roll…

Surely I can’t stop at just one achievement…

I still have to go back to Outland for the daily fishing quests.. there is more there I want, but not much now…

Looking for my beloved Squirrels

I have some time, so it’s time to go possum hunting!
Of course, that will require that I go a few places I haven’t been before, and you know how much I like unexplored bits…

No more sorrow in the swamps for me….

OK, actually there was…

I cleared the zone, killed a toad and went on my merry way…. only to discover later it was a Huge Toad I was after…

Gorge Seared and…

Pests controlled!
Who needs Dwarven rat catchers when you have a fire breathing Gnome?

Speaking of the dwarves, I cleared up a bit of their territory and while I was at it, I loved me some squirrels…

Then once the Ice Lance hit, I shared the love…

OK, I can be a sick Gnome at times…

WTB closet

I mentioned before that there were two things I would like Blizzard to fix. One was LFG, the other is my clothing dilemma.

With all the tabards, tuxedoes, party hats, floral frocks etc I am picking up, there is no space left for my Epic offset pieces..

This is becoming a big problem… seriously Blizzard, give us an extra bank slot that only accepts tabards and gray or white cloths that expands like the key ring does. One quick easy fix… please!

The reason I rolled a Mage

There are moments when I am playing my Mage that reinforce my love of the class. More often that’s when I manage to squeeze off the sheep, or save the healers or do the rare but enjoyable silly DPS numbers that I used to expect.

In my Achievement hunting rush over the weekend, I ran a couple of old instances, and they brought such a rush… AoE here, AoE there, AoE everywhere…

Not in the “Northrend we will clear the trash without skill kind of way”, rather the hordes of evil dungeon dwelling denizens rushing at the solo Mage while he raises is staff above his head and strikes them all down.

Shadowfang Keep was the 1st of these experiences. As I weaved my way down the convoluted hallways, I remember how long this used to take, how precise we had to be in our LoS pulls, how careful we had to be…

As a level 80, it wasn’t hard, but it sure was fun, fun, FUN!

I finally found that mine that had been eluding me every time I ran through Silverpine forest…

… and dropped in on the Forsaken spawning point… I really should have gone in there and cleared them from the face of the earth… but let’s face it, 90% of those players will wake up to themselves an reroll Gnomes, so it wasn’t worth the effort.

Next stop was Scarlet Monastery.

Once again I got to experience the joys of being a Mage… I rarely stopped for loot, the main goal was Bosses and Books.

Books read, Bosses down, Achievement earned!

Time to trot over to Scholmance… damn, I knew there was a key I didn’t have… It never really mattered, Mr. Z! was always at our side and it was always too expensive… not any more!

Ohh yes, I am!

Ohh what an unexpected bonus (OK, I expected it, but hey…).

Time to put that key to good use…

Mmmm I forgot that 50% of Scholomance laughed in the face of Magic…

…looks like this little coven forgot too!

Unfortunately positioning of the rat, don’t you think?

Ohh well, I probably should have researched Scholo before I ran on in. It’s not an instance I will be slaughtering this weekend, although I am sure it’s possible for a Mage to solo, I really had no idea where I was going… I think I have only been there half a dozen times in the past. Maybe next time I will take Mr.Tree… he can change between physical DPS and healing as required… Maybe I will just take Mr. Z!, I dare say that between his daggers and my knives of ice and fire there wont be any need for heals.

Taking down Rattlegore was fun solo…

I seem to remember it was a pig of a fight. I do remember a Mage (I think it was Faxmonkey) soloing Rattlegore over about 15 minutes back when level 60 was cap. At level 80…. pffft… walkover…

How much of a walk over…

I popped my 3 little friends, just to distract him… He couldn’t even take down one of my mirror images! Not one!!

Anyway, I gave up on the full clear, settling for a drop in to do my self a little reading…

Someone in the guild suggested it was a lot of books to read…

I pointed out that I wasn’t any more edumakated now that I had read the index pages…

You might be able to find the Ahune quest in the LFG menu if you were level 70… just a guess.

You should have looted in the Scarlet Monastery!
There is a tabard that drops in there, Tabard of the Scarlet Crusade or some such. I got it on my pally a while back.

Complete agree that we need a better solution for the tabards. I know that I can sell/destroy them and then repurchase most of them, but what’s the fun in that? A drop-down box like for titles would be wonderful.

Depends on what day of the week you ask. Two days ago it was Chile, tomorrow it’s Peru. Later this month it’s Columbia and Panama, then a quick stop in Bermuda before back to the UK. Working for Grey Funnel Shipping Lines is never boring. And much to my surprise, the wonders of the information age have finally caught up with us, just very, very slowly. :)